It”™s no secret Orange County”™s fertile black dirt farmland has taken a beating the past few years: four “50-year floods,” along with multiple rain and ice storms. The 29 inches of rain in spring 2009 proved a washout for most of onion farmer Chris Pawelski”™s crops, just as it did for many of his neighbors in Pine Island.
Though he paid insurance to protect against loss, Pawelski told U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the current method of repayment for loss actually nets farmers nothing; in essence, they are paying for insurance that, in the end, does not even repay what the premium cost the farmer to buy.
Pawelski and farmers from across the country traveled to Washington, D.C., on June 30 to testify before Lincoln and her committee, currently studying revisions and upgrades to the proposed Farm Bill of 2012, letting them know what they believe needs to be done to make farming a sustainable occupation.
“Current farming insurance laws do not explain why Congress has had to pass multiple crop-loss programs as well as create a permanent disaster aid program as part of the last farm bill,” Pawelski told the committee. He also questioned why in 2009Â “I paid a $10,000 premium, which supplemented by a $20,000 taxpayer premium, suffered a $115,000 loss and collected a $6,000 indemnity.”?Crop insurance reform over the years, Pawelski said, typically involved increasing the federal subsidy rates to make policies cheaper for the farmer ”“ “but there has been very little discussion as to why these policies don”™t pay out, which is a primary reason why farmers are reluctant to participate.”
Pawelski suggested that the Farm Bill of 2012 include provisions for farmers to throw out one bad year out of five or two bad years out of 10 when calculating their “actual production history” (APH). Or, he said, allow farmers to insure their crop using the county average yield in place of their production history for the year in which the disaster designation occurred, currently required under the existing Farm Act.
Under the current policy for farmers, they only receive full value of their insurance if they lose 100 percent of their crop. In most situations, Pawelski told the U.S. Senate committee, it does not happen.
“Producers never get full value of the policy in claim situations … I have had numerous insurance policies over the years ”“ health, auto, homeowner ”“ but none of them have ever had a ”˜deductible facet”™ comparing to multiple peril crop insurance policies … under (Multiple Peril Crop Insurance”™s) current policy, deductibles are percentages existing on sliding scale that grow larger as the damage percentage decreases … and if a farmer has a 25 percent loss, the deductible becomes 100 percent for what is considered 75 percent coverage of the crop. In essence, they collect nothing.”
Pawelski and his wife, Eve, were invited to travel to Washington to give testimony in front of the committee just a few days before the hearing was scheduled. They sat down and put together five minutes of concise testimony, the limit allowed each speaker. Follow-up questions by committee members gave farmers an opportunity to have a question-and-answer period with the committee about the problems small farms face.
“It was a heck of a privilege to testify and I”™m glad Senator Kirsten Gillibrand gave me the opportunity,” Pawelski said. “I had the opportunity to hear other farmers from other parts of the country talk about similar situations they are facing.”
This year, Pawelski and many of his Pine Island counterparts, have “catastrophic coverage,” considered bare bones coverage available under Multiple Peril Crop Insurance. Any additional insurance has to be carefully considered. “It”™s just not affordable,” he said. “Under catastrophic coverage, you pay an administrative fee; all that farmers can afford in the current climate.”
